


A lonely, subtle voice and its echoes in your head

by SolainRhyo



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers IDW, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Betrayal, Cyberpunk, Death, F/M, Graphic Violence, Isolation, Kidnapping, M/M, Optimus romance, Reader-Insert, Sexual experiences of the atypical nature, Slow Burn, no non-con, some gore, this planet is not Earth, uncomfortable situations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:55:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26433007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolainRhyo/pseuds/SolainRhyo
Summary: You've never caught a Cybertronian before."Catch and release" is typically how you handle it when someone undeserving stumbles into your traps, but this time it's not that simple. You should know better than to take risks like this, because usually they get you into trouble.This time is no different.
Relationships: Optimus Prime/Reader, Optimus Prime/You, Optimus Prime/human, Optimus Prime/human female
Comments: 34
Kudos: 164





	1. Whatever happened to indifferent, doll?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **A couple of things to note:** "Fabs" is short for fabricated (androids). "Renders" are what androids are officially called. "Enhanced" is used to reference anybody with cybernetics.

Something has tripped your trap.

No video feed of the culprit, unfortunately, because the connection in that area is faulty and you haven’t gotten around to fixing yet. All you’ve got to go on is the pulsing red notification on the bank of screens before you. You roll your bottom lip between your teeth as you consider what to do. This isn’t something new. Your traps are often tripped, usually by those you are actively trying to avoid — hence, traps. But sometimes what gets caught up in them is entirely undeserving—stray animals, usually. But sometimes it’s just a wanderer who falls into them, someone who is naive to the dangers of House territory, someone who is idiotic for even venturing this far. Unwary curiosity isn’t a crime though it often exacts a price, but you’re unwilling to be that headsman.

So—there’s someone or something in your trap. If you could see what it was, you could make a choice. If it’s a fab or enhanced, you’d venture out armed and dispose of the threat easily, guiltlessly. If it was anything else you’d deactivate the trap remotely, let it go, and hope that it learned a lesson of caution from this mishap. No way to know without laying eyes on it, though, and you let your breath out in a sigh.

Outside this series of underground warrens—your home—lies the devastated expanse of the old city of Aquarius, populated still by those who destroyed it in the first place: four ancient Houses, kingdoms in their own right, vying for control of wreckage and ruin because if they are not actively trying to defeat the other, they are without purpose. The rest of Aquarius - the functioning, living part - is to the west, separated from this treacherous expanse by a massive fortified wall known as the Boundary. You don’t have much to do with that part for numerous reasons.

You move through the rooms quickly, gathering what you need: the rifle, of course, slung over your shoulder by its strap, hidden from view by the folds of your long, dark, too big coat. Your full suite recorder, capable of chronicling a ridiculous number of useful things like audio, visual, atmospheric data, and chemical traces (just to name a few) slips into your interior pocket. You take your comm-unit but don’t attach it to the port behind your ear because you hate being in the stream unless you absolutely need to be. Into the other pocket go auto-injectors full of Zz (zee-zee), a street sedative, because sometimes the ones that don’t deserve to be in the trap are the ones that put up the biggest fight. You make your way to the exit, which requires you to climb up a ladder and a set of steep stairs, and you traverse both carefully. Sometimes your limbs are uncooperative. You’ve fallen up _a_ _nd_ down both more than once.

There are a series of locks barring your sanctum from the rest of the world and all of them can be activated remotely via the interface embedded in your right wrist. To any on the street looking inward this building is just the burned, crumbled husk of a bar once known as “Purgatory.” The sign still hangs on the wall outside, crooked by merit of whatever explosive got tossed through a window twenty years ago. The interior is just rubble and the remains of what used to be—scattered and broken tables, stools, and chairs. Old, dirty bottles and glasses, some shattered, some not. Faded posters and broken neon signs on the walls. It is a ghost of what once was, like the old city.

Like you.

You pull yourself out of the hatch, drop it shut behind you and fasten it with a swipe of your left index finger across your wrist interface. Once the lock is engaged the hatch shimmers and disappears from view—holographic masking at work. Anyone looking will just see broken floorboards. The interior of Purgatory—an apt name, these days—is dark. It’s just past midnight and no street lights remain here anymore to offer any illumination. Darkness is not a deterrent to you thanks to your ocular implant. It has three vision modes which you can navigate through by engaging the _orbicularis ocul_ muscle (took a lot of time to get the hang of that). One of the modes offers you regular vision (albeit with scotopic enhancement), lets you see the world the way your left eye still does. The other two modes are – _were_ – meant for tactical use. Thermal and radiographic imaging, respectively, advanced combat issue, state of the art. The radiographic lens requires small amounts of iridium to function, easily enough inserted through the tiny intake on the side of the implant itself. Using it too long, too often can result in some nasty side effects, or so you were told. You’ve yet to reach that threshold. Right now you’re using the default vision mode, which improves your night vision enough that you can navigate the interior of the bar to make your way out to the street.

You pause outside, listening. No gunfire, a deceptive boon. Somewhere out here in the ruins, violence is occurring. That’s just the way it is. You head down the street, sticking to the edges, and venture out into what is widely known as the kill zone.

**.x.**

Well, this is a first.

Your trap caught neither animal or human. It’s a Cybertronian, and it’s not alone. You are perched on a rooftop across the street and three buildings down, your legs dangling over the side. You’re not too worried about being spotted because your body temperature is lower than that of most humans, and besides, the two Cybertronians not in the trap seem far more concerned with figuring out how to free the third.

Cybertronians, as a general rule, do not venture inside the old city. They are autonomous robotic organisms not from this planet and as such, they are entirely unique. Marvels, some might say, so much so that they are highly sought after by numerous parties due to what they possess: technology unlike any to be found in this city and, unfortunately for them, technology that is almost _but not quite_ beyond the current comprehension of the greater minds of Aquarius. War is the engine that drives both sides of the city. War is what makes money. War requires constant advancements in weaponry, innovations that will change the way bullets are fired or electromagnetic cartridges are discharged or how far an armor-piercing round can actually penetrate. War requires a great many things, and the Cybertronians offer too many possibilities in that regard to go ignored.

You feel sorry for them. A skirmish in space led to them crashing here, two ships, two factions. If they’d arrived centuries ago, before the Exiled, before the Houses, it would have been different. They would have been superior, gone unchallenged. As it is, though, and considerable as they are—well, they’re not invulnerable. The technology of the present rivals that of theirs in some ways, though it does lack in others. While they are veritable titans in stature compared to mankind, they are equal in most every other aspect and it is to their detriment. The Houses want them. Some cells of the Sovereign want them. The gigantic cybernetics and robotics corporation UnAuthentic wants them, and from its headquarters on the “safe” side of the boundary it routinely dispatches armed and armored retrieval teams to fetch them. Cybertronians are hunted here, though there are some places they’ve found haven, some groups they’ve allied with. But this—to venture out so far into old city in such small numbers—

“Idiots,” you mutter.

Time to get closer.

**.x.**

You’re at ground level now, tucked in behind the rusted, twisted shell of a truck that had been parked in the middle of grenade blast zone. You have a direct line of sight to the alley where your trap was rigged, and you’re able to observe the trio of Cybertronians—or bots, for simpler reference—with ease. They have altered their sizes—typically they tower over rooftops. The largest—eight or nine feet, probably—is the one caught in the trap and is absolutely motionless. Stasis-locked. The trap itself is rudimentary but obviously effective, four points connected by an electrical current that alternates on a microsecond basis, creating a perimeter. The current is barely visible to the naked eye as green dancing arcs of electricity. This particular trap design—shock coil, pressure plate—had been meant to catch any enhanced or fabs that may have strayed into your neighborhood, because they weigh a great deal more than normal humans and because any that are around are undoubtedly looking for you. You had no idea it would affect a Cybertronian the same way it affected those with heavy cybernetic modifications, but you do now. Useful information. You file it away.

The other two are smaller, though not by much. One is yellow and black the other white and gray, the one in the trap red and blue. You don’t recognize them but it’s not surprising, as the only interactions you’ve had with their kind has been limited to one. You’ve seen their kind around, though, more than once, and you’ve studied them when you had the time. You switch vision modes. Nothing odd in thermal other than the fact that they run cold, but you knew that already. You swap to radiographic and they are laid bare before you. Their forms, living metal, highly durable, not of this world—you can see _into_ them. You can see the faint outline of all the millions of moving parts, minuscule, fantastically intricate. You can see the circulation of energon, myriad streams that pulse gently. And then your eyes draw upward over the body of the yellow one to observe the glowing star in the center of its chest, a beautiful ethereal thing to your modified vision. If they have anything similar to a heart, you think, that must be it: the spark.

Your eyes switch to the white one, study it the same way, and then to the one in the trap—everything is the same, but then you look at its spark to find it flaring brightly, too brightly, and your hand jerks up to cover your implant as you hiss. You blink your normal eye in an instinctive effort to clear the white spots that aren’t really there. What the hell was that? With your implant still covered you return your gaze to the biggest Cybertronian, examine it. Nothing unusual. Still motionless. You move your hand, cover your normal eye, and brace yourself, dimming the radiographic lens’ light absorption rate. It’s the same, though—this Cybertronian’s spark is still flaring radiantly, a sun among stars and a thought strays to you—foolish, unbidden, silly—that it is a light of grace.

“We can’t just leave him here!”

The yellow one’s shout startles you out of your bizarre little reverie. He is gesturing wildly. You switch back to your default vision.

“That is not what I—”

“If they find him—”

_“Bee.”_

The yellow one shuts up. The white one is silent a moment, as though deliberating his words. Finally he says, “I will go.”

“There’s no _time!”_

“Wheeljack could figure out a way to dismantle this. Do you have a better idea?”

Clearly the answer is no. The yellow one—Bee—whips around and kicks at a chunk of concrete displaced from a building nearby. It hurtles down the street, smashing into a building. You wince. It’s not wise to make noise out here.

His companion apparently is of the same opinion, because he steps close, grabs Bee by the arm, growls out, “Optimus said to use discretion!”

“Yeah, and look where it got him!”

Their voices abruptly drop and they begin to argue softly. You lean your head back against the truck and think hard. If you leave now, more of them will come, and that will inevitably draw undesirable amounts of attention to this area. You don’t want or need members of the Houses, Sovereign, or UA lingering around. It’s isolated in this part of the old city because of how hazardous it is and you prefer it that way. All you have to do is deactivate the trap remotely and then you can slip away unnoticed. You lift your arm, push back the sleeve of your coat, and navigate the interface. _Deactivate?_ blinks up at you in blue text, and you tap once. The indicator flashes yellow and then red. _Error._

Of-fucking-course there is. So—

You rise to your feet and step out from behind the truck.

Bee spots you immediately. “Suture!” he warns, and the white one whips around. Both of their arms seamlessly transform into energy weapons—a useful trick many people in Aquarius would like to thoroughly understand and replicate—and are immediately pointed at you.

You lift your hands above your head, palms out in what you assume is the universal gesture for _please don’t fuck me up._ You wait a beat, then two, and when neither of them fire you take a step forward.

“Stop.” orders the white one. Suture.

You comply, wait as they scrutinize you. You describe yourself in your head as they are undoubtedly doing within theirs: _Human. Gender not immediately discernible. Cybernetically enhanced optic, upper right limb, partial left upper limb, possible others. Weapons?_

“I’m armed,” you admit, and the sound of your own voice startles you a little. It’s raspy, insubstantial. You don’t speak much. Clearing your throat, you go on, “For my own protection.”

“Why are you here?” demands Bee.

“That trap,” you say with a thrust of your chin, “is mine. I can disarm it.”

They exchange glances. “Why would you?” snaps Suture.

“It wasn’t meant for you.”

“So a trap that induces stasis-lock is just—”

You raise your voice to cut over his. “It’s for enhanced. For fabs—for renders,” you correct, uncertain if they’re familiar with the slang.

Suture scoffs. “You see a lot of those out here, do you?”

“More than I’d like.”

 _“You’re_ enhanced,” Bee points out.

You feel your lip twist with something like a smile, brittle and unhappy. You can’t really dispute that point as much as you would like to. “I am.”

You wait for them to make up their minds, hands still held above your head. Despite how you feel about them, the upside to having cybernetic limbs is that the build-up of lactic acid is no longer an issue. You could stand like this for hours but would really prefer not to. You’re afraid that they may have already drawn attention and if they have…

“All right,” says Bee. You slowly lower your arms as he steps to the side and points toward his companion caught in the trap. “Set him loose. Goes without saying that if you try anything…”

“Got it,” you acknowledge, and walk across the street toward them. You make an effort to move smoothly but know that the hitch in your stride will probably be noticeable anyway. Once on the crumbled remains of the sidewalk, you step into the alley. They follow, flanking you. The space between your shoulder blades twitches, instinct telling you how unsafe this could be. You’d spotted the insignias they both bear during your initial inspection and they are all Autobots, the less contentious and problematic of the two factions. Or so rumor has it.

Their comrade triggered the trap mid-step, is locked in stasis while balanced perfectly in one spot. You’re unsure the effects of prolonged stasis-lock on their kind, but you know it can be very detrimental to fabs and enhanced. The trap’s controls are hidden from view, yet another example of holographic masking. Two taps on your wrist interface and the illusion fades, revealing a small but complex control panel screwed to an empty door frame where a hinge used to be. Deactivating the trap only requires that you pull out the miniscule programming chip, which you do after glancing over your shoulder to find both bots observing you closely.

The current dies. The big Autobot completes the step he’d been in the middle of taking and pauses, looking around, clearly confused. His luminous blue eyes find his companions before flicking to you, traveling down the length of your arm to take in the chip you hold, and then moving onto the control panel. His brow plating draws together.

“A trap?” he queries in a deep and resonant voice. It takes you a moment to realize he’s speaking to you.

“Yes. It wasn’t meant for you, though.” You palm the chip and turn to face them all, offering them a shrug. “I apologize.”

He looks to his companions. “How much time has passed?”

Bee answers. “Just over a cycle.”

The big one makes a displeased hum. “We are late.”

“Optimus, perhaps we should reconsider this,” Suture says in a low voice. Clearly the discussion that is about to commence is not meant for you, and so you ease past Bee, your task done. You’ll leave them to whatever unwise mission brought them here in the first place.

You’ve just crossed the street when Suture calls out to you. “Human, wait!”

You jerk to a halt, turning to face them. They are on the verge of stepping out into the street and you shake your head, wave them back. It’s never smart to linger out in the open in the old city, even as desolated as it may seem. You return to them, walk past them, further into the alley and it’s there you stop. They have followed, their bulk crowding the smaller confines of the alley even in their diminished forms.

“This is not a place to be seen or heard,” you warn them. “There’s always something out here looking to start shit. And in your case…” you trail off, knowing that they don’t need to be reminded of just what dangers perpetually seek them.

“We are unfamiliar with this territory,” the one called Optimus says.

“But not unfamiliar to the city. You’ve been here long enough to know that this place is .”

Bee says, “We’ve heard, yes, but we didn’t know—and besides, you’re the only one we’ve seen so far—”

“There is always _something_ out here,” you stress with a cutting gesture, and then shake your head. Time to get to the point. “Why did you tell me to wait?”

“Do you live here?” Suture asks.

“I’m familiar with the area,” you reply, which is deliberately neither a yes or no.

“How familiar?” Bee demands.

“Enough,” you reply, unable to mask your ire at being interrogated, “to avoid stumbling into traps.”

Bee jabs a finger behind him, toward the control panel you’d deactivated. _“You_ laid those traps!”

“Yes. We’ve been over this.” You shift your weight, feeling a familiar, unpleasant twitching in your right leg. “What do you need?”

It is Optimus that answers. “We require a guide. We must reach our destination quickly and cannot afford further delays.”

You don’t even bother to tone down your disbelief. “You came here without knowing how to get to your destination?”

“We know the general location,” Bee says. “We have the coordinates.”

“What we did not account for,” Suture continues, “is how severely our navigation would be affected by… well, we are uncertain as to just _what_ is affecting it.”

“You can thank the Houses for that.” You lift a hand, wave it around to indicate the surroundings. “There are signal obstructors and scramblers all over this place.”

“The way the Houses conduct warfare makes no fragging sense,” Bee says with a frown.

It does make sense to you, though, probably because you’d spent most of your life conducting it. House warfare is all about ensuring the other Houses can’t have what you have, even if it is to your detriment. You’re not going to bother trying to explain the convoluted, seemingly contradictory intricacies of it. “Where are you going?”

The three of them exchange glances. Optimus provides the answer. “We are meeting with a human known as Xerxes.”

“Xerxes.” Your voice is flat.

Optimus raises a brow plate. “You know of this individual?”

“Yes.”

“Will you take us there?”

It’s not far. They’d almost made it on their own. You can say no, of course, and you’re pretty sure that if you refuse they won’t press the issue. Of course, the longer they are out here wandering around, the more likely it is they’ll draw attention to what you consider your neighborhood.

You become aware that they are all watching you as you internally deliberate. “Yes,” you say eventually.

“Thank you,” Optimus says, earnest and sincere in a way that bothers you. “Your assistance is appreciated.”

**.x.**

You take them on the route you usually take, which is to say that you stay off the streets and alleys and instead make your way through the shells of abandoned buildings. You’ve made this trek so many times that you nearly have the number of steps it takes to get through any specific room memorized. You walk without speaking, determined to get them there as quickly as possible, unable to shake the uneasy feeling that has draped itself over you like a blanket. This was probably a stupid idea. About five minutes into it Bee and Suture begin to argue about something in low voices, but even low voices will register on hidden recorders and sensors and you’ve no doubt some of those are around. You stop before stepping through a hole in a wall to look back at them. You’re not sure if you’re glaring—having an ocular implant makes you uncertain of your facial expressions sometimes. Optimus, in position behind you, holds up a hand and catches their immediate attention.

“Quietly,” he tells them. You nod your approval and continue on.

In an empty garage that withstood the early war better than most the buildings surrounding it, you tell them to wait as you proceed further in.

“Why?” asks Bee. You get the sense that asking questions is his natural state.

“Trap,” is your reply. Suture, who had been on the verge of doing what you’d told him not to, freezes in the middle of stepping over a pile of rubble. The three of them gather around the ragged aperture where the emergency exit had once been and watch as you expose yet another control panel—this time for a Tesla trap, another device meant to eradicate fabs or enhanced. This one is older and requires manual deactivation, and once it’s done you stand and beckon them inside.

“You are very familiar with such devices,” Suture remarks as you stride through the bay where vehicles had once been parked. “Along with your familiarity for such a desolate place, it begs the question why.”

“To deter visitors,” is your blunt and honest answer.

“Do you have many?”

You open your mouth to reply and instead utter a grunt as your right leg buckles. You drop to one knee, catching yourself with one hand on a pile of old tires, and wait out the malfunction with your jaw clenched. The faint whine and clinking of cybernetic components struggling to realign themselves is audible.

“Are you in need of—” Suture starts.

“I’m fine.” Your words are too loud, too harsh. You’re able to give them substance, though, because abruptly things start to work as they should, and you push yourself to your feet and start to walk without a backward glance. Your first few steps are uneven as the various parts of your body strive to find synchronicity. That will be obvious to the bots, of course, and you hate that they’re witnessing it as much as you hate that it’s happening. You quicken your stride.

Together, the four of you move through three more buildings in silence. The bots are observant, dutiful, stepping where you step and waiting for your signal to proceed after you. You think about how different they are from the only other bot you know. You wonder how that bot would react to these ones. Probably not well. A thought for another time, though, because as you stand poised to dart across an alley you become aware of voices, drifting to you from the street to your right. You instantly shove yourself backward, back inside the building you’d just exited, bumping up hard against Optimus. He steadies you with a hand on your shoulder and you twist around, point further into the confines of the room. He obeys, the other two with him, moving toward an ascending staircase. You remain by the door, back pressed to the wall, straining to hear.

Yes. Voices. You pull your full suite recorder out of your pocket, activate it, deftly attune it to audio. It’s able to detect sound at a far greater range than you are and channels that sound through your neural implant. What you hear is clear and devoid of any interference: the staccato of booted feat. Breathing and a couple sniffles. Voices, coordinating a search effort to find Cybertronians that have been spotted moving through the kill zone. You close your eyes as your stomach drops. This is a fetch team, and it’s exactly what you’d been afraid of.

You can’t tell from the few words being spoken which House in particular this fetch team belongs to, but you know it’s a House from the phrases they use. Near the stairs Bee moves, dropping into a crouch, and you shoot a warning glance that way. All three of them are watching you, clearly waiting for your direction. You don’t know what to do. Attacking is an option, but probably an unwise one. If this fetch team has been dispatched to hunt Cybertronians it means they’re armed to the teeth. It’s not that the bots can’t defend themselves – even in diminished form they can easily lay waste to one group of hunters, but that will draw the attention of others. Once that happens the only way out is to leave the old city entirely, a task that will be tremendously difficult while being pursued by one or more groups even should the Autobots revert to their normal sizes. As it is now, this fetch team is already undoubtedly scanning each and every building for the biosignatures unique to autonomous robotic organisms. Running is another option, but you’d have to go back the way you came and you are not currently confident in your ability to endure. Which leaves only the third option: distraction.

The recorder gripped in your right hand, you manipulate your wrist interface with your left, swiping until you’re brought to a series of commands you’ve never had the opportunity to use before now. You pause before committing, waiting to see if the search team will for any reason turn in another direction. They don’t. They’re close enough now that you can hear them clearly without needing the recorder. All that’s separating your group from theirs are some walls of dubious structural integrity. You press down on the interface, triggering one command and then another in quick succession. 

The air is torn by a rolling _BOOM,_ followed instantly by another. The building around you trembles and loose chunks of concrete topple to the floor. Shouts go up from outside, confused, agitated, and you listen with both artificial and natural ears as they debate what to do. Their leadership—two, one man, one woman—make the executive decision to call off the search and scout the explosion sites. You listen through the recorder as their running footsteps abate and then wait two minutes longer before killing the audio connection, slipping the recorder back in your pocket, and turning to face the bots.

“What did you do?” Bee asks.

“Created a diversion,” is your brief response. You beckon them. “We need to go. Quickly.”

**.x.**

Xerxes’ kingdom, as he refers to it, is similar to yours but on a much larger scale. He claimed a pre-war bunker, the property of some affluent family, equipped with all the bells and whistles of the time. The entrance is cunningly hidden behind a false wall in a basement of what once was a mansion, and once you stand before it you dig your comm-unit out of your pocket. Xerxes has nothing in the way of doorbells. The only way to notify him that you’re here is to either hope he’s watching his security feeds, or patch into the stream. You don’t have to do the latter, turns out, because the massive door swings open with a hiss like that of compressed air. You take several steps back, and watch as Xerxes himself steps out of the cavernous, dimly lit corridor beyond. He’s a tall man with dark skin and dark hair. The sweeping gaze of his artificial eyes encompasses the small group of bots before finally settling on you.

“This is something I didn’t expect, Tatterdemalion,” he greets in his accented voice. He moves toward you with long strides and you watch him warily. The relationship the two of you share is one not easily defined. He’s clothed in a tight gray shirt and black pants with military issue boots, the laces undone and tucked behind the tongue. He stops before you, reaches out to chuck you under the chin with two fingers. “My new clients were supposed to arrive more than an hour ago. How did they find you?”

You pull your away from his touch. You’re uncomfortable with that sort of thing and he knows that, which is why he does it. “They didn’t find me. They found one of my traps.”

“Oh,” he says, and then turns his head to eye the three bots. _“Oh._ You chose to let them go?”

“Well, they’re here…” you say, unable to keep withering sarcasm from coating your words.

It makes Xerxes smile. You look away from him. He addresses the Autobots. “You’re most fortunate Tatter did not decide to sell your location to the Houses. She could have made a small fortune.”

It’s the truth. It bothers you more than a little that the thought did not even occur to you.

Optimus, with a respectful nod in your direction, says, “We are most grateful she did not, and for her assistance in getting us here.”

Xerxes makes a chiding, clucking noise. “You don’t mean to tell me you got lost?”

“Navigating this cesspool is impossible!” Suture snaps.

“Ah, but I warned you of the interference, didn’t I?”

Suture’s glower indicates that the answer to this question is _yes,_ but it is Optimus who responds. “We were unprepared.”

“But you are here, and that is good.” Xerxes waves toward the entrance to his home. “Come.”

You turn as the Autobots do as he directs, make your way back toward the stairs leading out of the sprawling basement and back up to the main floor. You did what you said you’d do. You’ve no desire to set foot inside his domain; you do it often enough as it is. Xerxes is unwilling to let you slip quietly away, however, and he calls after you. “You need some work done, Tatter.”

You stiffen and stop but don’t turn. “Not yet.”

“I can tell by the way you’re walking. Come inside and I’ll patch you up once my business with these three is done.”

You shake your head. “Not tonight. Soon.”

“Stubborn,” he remarks, and you don’t have to see his face to know he’s smiling again. You’re about to resume walking when approaching footsteps—heavy, not human—draw your head around. Optimus.

“There is something I would discuss with you,” he says quietly as he stops close to you, “if you will wait.”

“You want me to guide you back out.”

“Yes, but that is not all. Will you wait for us?”

There’s something about his gravitas that unsettles you, reminds you of how blindingly his spark had shown through your altered sight. Even at a reduced size he towers over you and you have to crane your head back to meet his gaze.

“I’m not sure what you think I can do for you,” you say.

“You aided us unasked—”

“You were caught in _my_ trap.”

“Yes, and as Xerxes said, you could have chosen to act differently than you did.”

“Don’t read too much into it.”

“You did not have to—”

You cut him off, oddly uncomfortable. “Okay. Yes. I’ll wait.”

“Inside, I hope,” Xerxes butts in, having drifted close enough to eavesdrop because of course he did. You toss him an irritated glance but he simply shrugs.

“Fine,” you bite out, stepping past them both. Bee and Suture are waiting at the entrance and you stomp past them, frustrated with the fact that Xerxes got his way as he too often does. There’s a small room off to the right several feet in and that’s where you go, heading directly to one of the three chairs settled against the opposite wall and, after adjusting the rifle that still hangs from your shoulder, you collapse into it. On the facing wall there is a bank of TV screens, five total, all of them showing nightly news from the networks located in the safe side of Aquarius. They are muted, the headlines shown in scrolling text across the bottom. Other than the chairs and screens, the room is bare, illuminated by a single glowing neon lamp in the corner. Xerxes refers to this space as his ‘waiting room.’

“You can make yourself at home,” Xerxes offers from the door.

You shake your head. “You have business. I’ll wait here.”

“Perhaps the Autobots would not mind if you—”

“I don’t want to know anything about any of it.” you interrupt, and fix your gaze on the screens in front of you. You reiterate firmly, “I’ll wait here.”

Xerxes sighs. “As you wish. Come,” he says to the Autobots, turning to head further into the bunker. They follow, all three glancing at you as they pass the doorway. The corridor is big enough that they don’t have to stoop. When the sound of their footsteps fades away, you heave a sigh and rub at your forehead, wondering why the fuck you decided to stay.

**.x.**

They are gone a good while. You watch the screens until you lose interest, filing away pieces of news that are interesting or may or may not be useful. Your lower leg twitches, the space behind the knee, and you lift it, stretch it out in an attempt to prevent another case of slipping. When you lower it again, you look up to find Suture standing in the door. He ducks inside, casting a quick glance around the room before leaning against the wall to your left, arms folded loosely. He’s tall enough that all he has to do is straighten and he’ll scrape the ceiling. You return your eyes to the screens. You’re aware that he’s studying you and instead of saying something rude like you’re tempted to, you decide to study him in turn.

He is a slender bot, the shortest of the three, lean and sleek, colored white with dark grey markings at every joint. His biolights are white and they stripe his shoulders and thighs. His white face is angular, eyes thinner than those of Bee or Optimus, and there’s an adornment in the center of his brow, a three-pronged design. You wonder about his alt form and assume it is either a car or a bike based on his build, but you could be wrong. You wonder if it would be offensive to ask. 

“How much of you is organic?” he asks.

Your normal eye blinks. Rude and blunt. You’re well past the point of being offended by such inquiries, though, so you give him the answer. “Less than half.”

“All of your limbs?”

“Not completely,” you say, surprising yourself with your candor. “Full on the right side, partial on the left.”

“Why only partial?”

You shake your head, instead ask, “What’s your alt form?”

His brow plates flit up, taken aback by your directness. Apparently the irony in that registers, because the corner of his mouth tips up slightly. “Bike.”

You nod, then indicate the interior of the bunker with a thrust of your chin. “Why aren’t you with them?”

“I got tired of all the talking.”

You give an amused snort. “Xerxes does love to hear himself.”

Suture redirects the conversation, gesturing to your leg with one hand. “Is it faulty?”

You shrug. “Not exactly.”

“But not working as it should be.” You give another shrug. He frowns. “Xerxes is your medic?”

‘Medic’ is not quite the term you would use. This discussion is skating too close to territory you have no wish to delve into, particularly with a stranger. “He has experience with cybernetics,” is all you say.

There is a short silence, as though he has discerned your discomfort and has decided not to push. You’re grateful for it. That gratitude fades with his next question.

“Why have you shown no interest in our purpose here?”

“People don’t enter the kill zone for anything less than dire reasons.”

“And it is safer the less you know?”

“Much.”

“Wise,” he comments, and then tilts his head as he adds, “or cowardly.”

You feel that pull at your lip again as it forms into a mirthless knot. Suture, it seems, has a proclivity to prod until he finds a person’s sore spot. “Your business is none of mine.”

“And what if we offered payment?”

You raise your brows, partially out of curiosity, partially because you know it’s the expression he expects to see. Some Cybertronians do in fact work for a living; you’re acquainted with one that does. Whether or not they have money to spend doesn’t concern you. You don’t need it. But because he seems to have developed a rather mercenary opinion of you, you gamely play along. “Are you?”

He gives you your own unpleasant smile back at you, but says nothing. The sound of voices approaches. It appears their business, whatever it may be, has concluded. You stand up as they reach the door, Xerxes in the lead.

“You stayed,” he remarks upon seeing you. “I was certain you would have left. You don’t tend to linger here.”

It’s the truth. You hate it here. You only come because it is a necessity, and one you fervently wish you didn’t have. “I agreed to wait,” is your terse reply.

Your leg locks up momentarily with the first step you take, the grinding noise loud enough to be heard. _Not now!_ you think, and it loosens immediately as though in response to your plea, but it’s too late. Xerxes artificial silver eyes are fixed on your culprit limb and he shakes his head.

“That needs attention, Tatter.”

“Later.” You approach the door, push past him into the corridor. He settles a hand on your shoulder before you go too far, though, fingers squeezing.

“Delaying makes it worse.”

“Yes,” you say through gritted teeth, “I’m aware of that, considering I live with it.”

He’s drawn nearer. He’s too close, almost pressing against you. You feel his amused expulsion of air against your ear. “If you were to come more regularly, this wouldn’t be an issue.”

You twist your head around to glare at him. He’s grinning, as you knew he would be. He enjoys discomfiting you like this. It’s not an attraction toward you he harbors, you’re certain, because he is an exceedingly handsome man and you are… what you are. His charm is likely blinding to many people but it isn’t for you. You’re aware of his looks, certainly—it’s hard to ignore those cheekbones or the dark, curling hair that falls to his shoulders, that impish smile—and while you are immune to them in some ways, you are not in others. He makes you feel self-conscious and ungainly and he’s aware of it, which is why he behaves the way he does. It’s also why, after examining your body the first time you came to him in search of someone who could keep you functioning without being tempted to sell you out to those who want you, he gave you the incredibly apt sobriquet of ‘Tatterdemalion.’ 

The arrangement between the two of you is less than desirable as a result of all this, but his skills are the only reason you’re still capable of moving and are not instead rotting in a home for enhanced whose cybernetics are old and obsolete, or those who can’t afford their upkeep. In return he asks for favors that you can provide due to the unique nature of your body, risky salvage missions that most others would charge a fortune for. He won’t sell you out and you won’t sell him out for the bevy of things you know he does that make him a very wanted man. It’s an uneasy coexistence, a fact that he delights in reminding you of incessantly.

You reach up with your right hand and grip his, your metal fingers squeezing his flesh hard as you remove his touch from your shoulder. “I’ll be back,” you enunciate with annoyance, “later.”

He winces, but his smile doesn’t falter. “I’ll be waiting.”

You drop his hand and head toward the vault door. It opens upon approach and you quickly step out of it, breathing an inaudible sigh of relief as the cool, dank air of the basement flows over you. Behind you Xerxes speaks final words to Optimus but you don’t linger to overhear. Instead you head for the stairs and begin to climb. When you reach the main floor you hear the Autobots follow, and you wait for them there.

“We shouldn’t talk here,” you say as Optimus approaches, mindful that Xerxes has the entirety of this area under surveillance. “I’ll guide you to the Boundary. We can discuss whatever you need to there.”

He inclines his head in agreement. Behind him Bee and Suture watch you expectantly. Outside there is only darkness and the deceiving silence of the kill zone. With a sigh, you make your way toward the door.

**.x.**

The trek to the Boundary takes just under an hour and it is entirely uneventful. The detonations you’d triggered earlier had probably drawn the attention of more than one faction, because it’s not long before the sound of faraway gunshots start to pepper the air. You derive a sense of grim satisfaction from this. Your enemies are killing your enemies.

You don’t speak for the duration, though Bee and Suture exchange comments you can’t quite make out every now and then. You are moving slower than you did before, because Xerxes was right—your artificial bits _do_ need some attention and after tonight’s excursion, things are only going to get worse. You’re certain the Autobots have taken notice of this, of the fact that the hitch in your stride has become more pronounced, but it's something you can only shrug off. It is what it is. When the Boundary finally becomes visible from out of the shattered windows of the dilapidated warehouse the four of you are currently crossing through, you are relieved.

The massive wall crosses through what was once, you assume, a scenic metropolitan park but is now just barren patches of earth with sidewalks meandering through. You’ve no intention of getting any closer to the Boundary than you need to, so you come to a halt just outside the warehouse’s surprisingly intact double doors and look over at Optimus.

“This is as far as I go,” you state.

He nods before turning to address the others. “Cross the wall and wait for me on the other side.”

 _Cross the wall?_ You’d assumed they’d found some kind of underground passage and had planned on crossing over that way. Plenty of them exist. So you watch as, after giving you a wave and a nod of the head respectively, Bee and Suture stride out into the middle of the park and revert to their original size. You’ve seen Cybertronians utilize mass displacement before, but it still takes you aback. Bee takes off running toward the wall and despite yourself, you lean forward slightly in anticipation of watching him clear it.

–except that he’s hit from behind by something that explodes with enough force to knock him _into_ the wall instead of over it. 

Suture wheels around, dropping into a combat stance, firing in the direction of the street on the right of the warehouse. Optimus takes three bounding steps forward before he also resumes his original form. It’s an impossible process to describe—he transitions from nine feet to twenty-ish in a blurred rush that happens in less than a fraction of a second. He’s a lot taller than the others you’ve seen from afar, taller even than the bot you occasionally interact with, but those are details you can dwell on another time, because now in addition to rockets there’s gunfire.

Complacency is what gets you killed. You know this. It’s why you’ve littered traps throughout your “neighborhood.” It’s why you have contingencies like incendiary charges hidden randomly throughout the kill zone. Being with the Autobots lulled you into complacency, because now you are all being attacked by a fetch team. You lunge back into the warehouse and drop into a crouch. You slink up to the windows facing the street, the glass long gone, and lift your head just enough to glimpse the cluster of soldiers bearing the blue mechanical eye insignia of the House of Cyleis. 

_Fuck._

They’re not just fucking around, either. They’ve come in force. You watch as an armored truck outfitted with all the equipment needed to hunt bots races up a side street, heading directly for Optimus. They keep him pinned down with weapon’s fire from all sides, which means that he’s clearly the goal. Bee is picking himself off the ground and Suture is covering him with his own salvo of shots, one of which hits a group of armed soldiers and sends them flying. The truck is almost within reach of Optimus and you know what will happen when it’s within range – it will deploy an anchor, a harpoon-like electrified projectile with barbs along the entire length to make forcible removal a very painful thing. It packs enough of a charge to knock a Cybertronian out cold, you know, because you’ve seen it happen before. You quickly shrug out of your coat, swing your rifle around, align the sights to your ocular implant. You intend to take out the driver but you’ve been too slow, because they’re already firing the anchor. 

_Optimus!_ you think, catch your breath and observe as Suture lunges desperately toward his leader, as Bee follows not far behind him. You want to look away, because watching an anchor do its job is never pleasant, but you can’t. You need to see this.

Optimus twists aside with an agility that belies his size, and the anchor goes sailing past to land near the Boundary. The driver of the truck spins it around aggressively, tires screeching, as the crew of three in the back frantically work to load another anchor. They don’t get the chance. Optimus levels his weapon at the truck and fires once. It’s blasted onto its side, passengers thrown up and away in all directions. You utter a soft “oh” as Optimus lunges toward the truck and with one well-aimed kick, sends it hurtling directly into the Boundary. The resulting explosion has you instinctively ducking down below the window, but you pop your head up a moment later to survey the battleground. No more trucks, but that doesn’t mean the threat is over for the Autobots. The troops on the ground undoubtedly have all the gear they need to bring a Cybertronian down.

This isn’t your fight. You don’t need to engage. You did what you said you’d do and you know somehow, inexplicably, that if you chose right now to make a discreet exit, Optimus wouldn’t blame you. Bee and Suture would, but Optimus wouldn’t. It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t, but it does, and that’s why you rise to your feet, bend low, and take aim out the window. You’re currently a non-entity to the fetch team.

Time to rectify that.


	2. This hostile audience

You are House-born. You were raised to be a part of the century-long skirmish between Houses. A large part of your upbringing included combat and recon training. You left the hostilities behind but they were reluctant to relinquish their hold on you, which means that in the years since you went into exile you’ve had to engage in conflict more often than you cared for. It feels like old times right now save for a few things—your aim is improved due to the increased responsiveness of your ocular implant, your reaction time and stability enhanced by way of your prosthetics. In fact, every bit of cybernetics you possess were at one point intended for intensive combat use. While you might be a bit rusty from a mental standpoint, every other part of you is always ready to go.

… Somewhat. In many aspects, leaving your old life was to your detriment. Your body requires routine, frequent maintenance in order to keep you functioning up to spec, which to an outsider may seem inconvenient until you consider that it was all by design. Cybersoldiers with free will always run the risk, even if small, of defecting or misbehaving. So the solution was to make it that they couldn’t defect without consequences, which in theory presents the perfect army. However, “best-laid plans” and all that, with you being an example of what happens when they go awry.

So it’s a familiar exercise, this, to adopt the stance, to fire off round after round with methodical precision. Your weapon is a T21 Arbitrator carbine, direct impingement, nanofluid cooled, another thing you brought with you from your old life. The fetch team was not expecting human interference and you are able to reduce their numbers by three in quick succession before they get a bead on your location. Bullets rain in through the windows and you drop, pressing your back to the wall. The grenade that sails in moments later is not a surprise and you are on your feet and bolting toward the open door. Were it not for your enhancements, you would have been caught in the detonation. As it is you clear the interior just barely, and the resulting blast blows one of the doors off its hinges and directly into you. You’re sent sprawling across unforgiving concrete.

Chaos rages. The three Autobots have taken up defensive positions near to each other, close to the Boundary, using the remains of two old bodegas as cover. You assume they’re waiting until the heat dies down before making an escape over the wall, but the heat is showing no signs of fading just yet. You’ve attracted your own little piece of attention from the fetch team and they are converging on you now. You get to your feet, eye your surroundings, realize you’ve got no chance of making it to cover. You’re unable to get off a round before they strike, so you surrender yourself to instinct from long ago. Your cybernetics draw from memory and training, yes, but they will only get you so far in a battle against others of the same skill and experience level. In events where you are outnumbered or facing poor odds, a reaction enhancer known as quicksilver floods through the graphite tubing in your limbs. It is the artificial cousin to adrenaline, just as potent, just as necessary.

You can taste the quicksilver when it’s released, even though you shouldn’t be able to. It resides on the back of your tongue, a sharp minty tang that quickly turns metallic. You’ve no way of outrunning what’s about to happen but you can mitigate the damage, and that’s why you twist around even as your assailants open fire. The entirety of your right side is armored—leg, arm, and a protective covering attached to both that fits against your ribcage, which is why you present that side to the oncoming streams of enemy fire, lifting your arm and tucking your head beneath it protectively. Bullets chew their way up your body. While you do have some sensation in your prosthetics, you don’t experience pain. All you feel now is a swift series of thuds. Your failure to topple over, perforated and bloody, buys you time to take the offensive and you lift the rifle, fall into a rhythm—aim, fire, kill, repeat. Three are felled and you draw down on the fourth, a woman in tactical gear who is wielding, you realize too late, an arc pistol. You drop, tucking into a ball.

“Fucking wirehead,” she spits out, and fires.

The charge catches you on the right side, as you’d intended. You feel nothing. She fires three times more and then you hear the clicking of a spent cell, a telltale sign of someone inexperienced or agitated—perhaps both. It’s all the opening you need and you let your rifle fall, launch yourself at her, tackling her hard enough that you both go skidding across the broken pavement. You recover faster, placing a knee on either side of her hips and she bucks hard, shoving at you, slapping you with enough force that your head jerks to one side. You weigh a great deal more than she does—beryllium and tungsten plated limbs and all the circuity and mechanical components they contain give you an advantage in that regard. She’s reached that same conclusion and her eyes widen as she opens her mouth, sucking in a breath to call for help over her comms. It’s a simple matter to grab both sides of her head and give a savage twist. She goes limp. You rise.

A body throws itself at you from the side, catching you unawares. A man, you glimpse in the fraction of a second before he hits you. He’s enhanced. You’re knocked back several feet, given no time to recover as he comes for you again. His arms are a mass of metal and flesh, bright purple tubing laced intricately between both. A brawler’s arms. You’re proven correct as he throws a right hook, which you narrowly dodge only to discover it was a feint. His left fist connects solidly with your jaw and your head snaps back, teeth clamping together. You taste blood.

Sometimes war narrows itself down to individual theaters, small battles waged in their own little bubble of existence. That’s where you are now, circling this Cyleis enhanced who watches you with the cold, calculating eyes of someone who has done this many times before. He carries himself with the confidence of someone who prefers—nay, enjoys—fighting hand to hand. He’s got a gun. He’s choosing not to use it. You are dimly aware that the rest of the fetch team is still engaged in the effort to fell their quarry.

He comes for you in a quick gliding sidestep, balanced low to the ground to provide less of a target. Those arms have been modded to deliver maximum power in every regard and even bolstered as you are, a good shot could debilitate you. You need to impede his ability to land a blow, so you throw yourself at him, grabbing him by the inside of the elbows. It’s a gamble—his upper body strength is greater than yours. Locked in a grapple the two of you struggle as he attempts to throw you to the side, but you’re anchored firmly as the systems in your prosthetics register the increased force and react autonomously. He rips one arm free, takes a shot at your protected right side. You _do_ feel pain when he connects, your breath rushing out of you as you stagger back. He’s not inclined to let you recover, instead rushes you, and you try to twist out of his reach—

Your leg buckles. The quicksilver rush is waning. You try to get up and fail—the joint is locked. You let yourself fall back onto your ass, swiping out with your functioning leg in a laughable attempt to take him down. His lips are twisted into a feral smile, which tells you all you need to know. He can and will beat you to death with those monstrous arms and enjoy every gory second of it. You raise your arms to shield your head anyway.

The ground trembles. The man gives a surprised, agonized grunt. You lower your arms to find that your assailant is airborne, swatted aside easily by the hand of Optimus. The Autobot is looking down at you with an unreadable expression.

“Thanks,” you say, and your voice is a little thin. Getting to your feet is a task that proves impossible because your leg still isn’t cooperating. _Fucking perfect._ You can only imagine what Xerxes will have to say about this. Optimus observes your struggle for only a few seconds before reaching for you. You smack at his fingers as he tries to grab you, partially out of shock, partially out of pure vexation at your own faulty body. He jerks his hand back, brow plates drawing into a frown.

“We cannot remain here.”

“I don’t plan to,” is your retort as you try again—and fail—to stand. You pound on your problematic knee in frustration. “Fuck!”

He does grab you then, quickly and carefully, cupping his palm and tipping you over into it. You’re furious and embarrassed and torn between both, which is why you sit rigidly and allow him to lift you. He starts to move, heading toward Bee and Suture, who are crouched behind the bodegas. The street between their location and the warehouse is littered with the bodies and the equipment of the fetch team. Optimus covers ground quickly. Flame flickers out of the warehouse windows and more fire burns near the Boundary where the wreckage of the anchor truck lies. Additional Cyleis troops are undoubtedly already on their way, and the sound of the battle and the smoke from the fires will attract attention from other curious parties in the kill zone. Optimus was correct. You can’t stay here.

He rejoins the others. Some unspoken order prompts them to transform into their alt modes, and you find yourself staring down at a sleek white and gray street bike and a yellow and black muscle car. “No—!” you start as realization dawns, your eyes moving up to Optimus’ face.

“Do not be alarmed,” he says, and then he’s transforming. It happens too swiftly for you to really be sure of anything other than a blurred rush and a sensation almost like that of falling. When it’s done you’re seated on the passenger side of an 18-wheeler minus the trailer, feeling a little dizzy.

“Hold on,” Optimus directs you, and then he’s accelerating with enough force that you’re thrown back in the seat. Through the windshield, illuminated by his headlights, you watch as Bee and Suture blaze down a side street. Road conditions in the old city are less than ideal, with most of them being blocked by some manner of rubble or ruin. The Autobots navigate these obstacles with ease and you wonder if they know where they’re going or if they’re running blind. You voice your question aloud.

“We are putting sufficient distance between ourselves and any enemy reinforcements,” is the reply.

“And what happens then?”

“There is still the matter of what we must discuss.”

You’re pretty sure you already know what the discussion will entail. “You’re going to ask me for help.”

You receive no response, which annoys you. Minutes later he begins to slow, following his subordinates as they pull into the exterior part of what was once a car park. They transform and Optimus follows suit without warning, and after a dizzying whirl of movement you find yourself once again held in his palm.

“Hey!” you snap, rapping on his closest finger with a fist.

He sets you down gently, not withdrawing his touch until it’s clear that you’re able to stand on your own merit. Your leg, it seems, has decided to behave. You take a couple steps forward experimentally and find while the joint is working, it’s sticking worse than before.

“You,” Suture says, and you crane your head around to see him approach. He drops to one knee in front of you, lowering himself until his face is right in front of yours. His eyes are thin slits. “I watched you take several energy blasts. How are you still functioning?”

“My prosthetics,” you say, turning a little to survey the area. It’s way too open, way too far from areas you are familiar with—areas filled with your own devices meant to ensure your own safety. Suture finds this answer unsatisfactory and touches you on the arm with one finger, pulling your attention around. You elaborate, deliberately succinct. “They all have prism coating.”

“That is... prism coating is very rare,” he says, a reluctant note of admiration in his tone.

“You’re a soldier,” Bee chimes in, crouching next to Suture. “You know your way around a fight.”

“I _was_ a soldier.”

“With who?” Bee’s eyes are narrowed as he examines you and abruptly he stills. You glance down to see what he’s seen and you stifle a sigh. He reacts exactly as you expect. “You’re one of _them.”_

The gunfire you endured earlier had chewed great, gaping holes in your black utility pants, revealing a large expanse of the prosthetic underneath. In the middle of your thigh, above the knee, is a blue and silver geometric emblem set against charcoal gray. It’s the insignia of the House of Halcyon Kept.

“I _was.”_ You correct, seeing Suture’s expression twist into a frown as well. They both stare at you dubiously. “Do you really think,” you ask slowly as to emphasize your exasperation, “that I would be living in the kill zone if I were still part of a House?”

“Not to mention,” you add, turning around to look up at Optimus, “I just _aided_ you.”

“You did,” he acknowledges, “and for that we thank you.”

“Yeah,” you say, glancing over at the other two. “I can really feel the gratitude.”

Optimus steps closer and lowers himself to one knee. Faced now with the three of them, you back up a few steps to save yourself from having to turn your head every time one of them speaks.

“Now that we have gained some distance—” Optimus starts, but you shake your head.

“You can’t be sure,” you interrupt. “I already told you, there is _always_ something out here.”

“And you can tell _how?_ ” Bee asks.

You dig your comm-unit out of your pocket and attach it to the port behind your right ear. It’s an Infiltrator XL9, a model that technically isn’t supposed to exist outside Aquarius’ military. It not only lets you monitor friendly frequencies in the stream, but lets you temporarily hack your way into encrypted and hostile ones as well. It’s another thing you were able to bring with you after leaving your old life. You’re automatically patched into the stream once the comm-unit is attached and then you’re still and silent, navigating the communication feeds that are funnelling in. There aren’t many—two Sovereign, and as you dip into them you hear only mundane chatter. You skip over to another, hear voices chattering excitedly about House graffiti on a wall. Fucking idiot tourists. There’s another feed here, appearing glittering blue in the mental construct the stream appears as. You tap that feed and find it blocked. Encrypted. Probably House.

As though from far away you hear Bee demanding, “What are you doing?”

“Hacking comms,” you say, and your own voice sounds faint to your ears. The Infiltrator software does the hacking at your directive, parting the insubstantial fibers of the encrypted channel, picking apart their threads until there’s an opening. You take it and slip smoothly in.

_“—biosignatures located northwest of Gate 9E.”_

_“Affirmative. Fetch Team Beta and Charlie already dispatched, transmitting locations now.”_

Fuck.

“They’re coming,” you say, slipping out of the channel and then out of the stream entirely. You detach the comm-unit and pocket it again. “More of them this time. They already know where we are.”

“How?” Suture asks.

“Your biosignatures. You had to know coming in here this was a risk?”

“It was a risk we had to take,” Optimus says gravely.

“I hope it was worth it.” You point behind them, to the north. “You need to go. Quickly. The Boundary is that way.”

Bee looks over his shoulder in that direction, then back at you. “What about you?”

“I’ll be fine,” you say.

Optimus opens his mouth to speak, but you cut him off with a slashing gesture. “We don’t have time to—”

He holds up a hand to cut you off, and you angrily swallow your words. An instant later you realize that they’ve detected something you haven’t, and between one blink and the next you hear it too—the sound of approaching vehicles. The fetch teams. And you’re all standing out here in the fucking open—

“Go,” he orders Bee and Suture in a low, terse voice. “Split up. Rendezvous back at base.”

“What about…?” Bee asks with a glance down at you.

“I’ll be fine,” you repeat, and wonder if that’s a lie considering a certain malfunctioning prosthetic. The car park, a quick look discerns, has multiple levels and you’re willing there’s an exit somewhere in the lower levels that feeds into the undercity. Not a great plan, but the only one you’ve got.

Bee and Suture transform, take off at breakneck speed in different directions. You can make out the roars of diesel engines as the fetch teams draw closer. More vehicles this time. They’re determined to bag themselves a prize. Optimus transfers his attention to you and you are momentarily disconcerted to see the lower half of his face is covered by a metal plate, presumably some manner of armor. You take a step back, in the direction of the car park.

“You need to _go.”_ you tell him.

“Will you be—?”

“Yes!” you bark. “Tell Xerxes later if you still need me. Just _go!”_

But it’s too late. The screech of tires on asphalt announces the first of the fetch teams and as they come around the corner, their fusillade begins. Tracer rounds light up the night and large caliber bullets hail against Optimus’ upper body, falling to land with hot sizzles on the pavement separating the two of you. He shields his face with one arm, lifts the other—now a dual-barreled energy weapon—to calmly return fire. You hesitate and that fact infuriates you as much as it bewilders you. _He’s a big bot,_ you think, and then whirl around and race toward the entry to the indoor car park. _Please,_ you plead with your leg, _just hold up a little longer._

A ear-splitting shriek tears the air and you spin around. You know that sound. It’s a fucking pike, a fire-and-forget vehicle mounted anti-tank missile, modified to hunt Cybertronians. It does its job very well, which you are now bearing witness to as one strikes Optimus in the side, bowling him over. He recovers quickly, bounding to his feet and getting off two well-placed shots of his own that send the closest pike truck cruising toward cover. There’s another pike truck, though, and that awful noise rises again and you watch as the missile corkscrews toward Optimus. He rolls to the side, dodging it, swings around to swat it into the nearest building where it detonates harmlessly. His maneuvering has put him about thirty feet from you. You’re edging backward, unable to tear your eyes from this brawl, and watch with grudging admiration as Optimus rips an old light post out of the ground and hurls it like a spear. It pierces the windshield of the pike truck that had just fired, driving it backward until its rear end crumples up against a concrete parking barrier.

Bullets are punching through the night all around you now. You’re not the main target, but you’re sure as fuck going to be collateral if you don’t get out of sight. Another truck speeds into view from the south, an anchor deployment mechanism in the back. The remaining pike truck has engaged in extreme evasive maneuvers, driving erratically in order to avoid Optimus’ fire while trying to find the sweet spot for the automatic targeting. Optimus is entirely focused on it and you doubt he’s seen the anchor. You no longer have your rifle and there’s no way you can reach the anchor truck before it fires so you suck in your breath and scream the Autobot’s name with as much force as you can muster. His audio sensors are apparently up to task with all this commotion, because he risks a backward glance at you and you point at the anchor. He registers it as the greater threat, lunges to one side, and lays down a barrage of fire from all his blasters. The anchor truck, halted in an effort to launch, is obliterated, but this victory comes at a cost.

Another pike fires.

It strikes Optimus square in the chest and you watch _—oh fuck no—_ as he’s knocked backward, toward you. You freeze as one of his feet slams into the concrete on your left, make a muted noise of fright as the other hits the ground on your right close enough that the resulting tremor knocks you to your knees. Optimus is hunched over, clutching at his chest, and from your position between his legs you can see the pike team is swiftly reloading. The Autobot lifts his head, sees the same. Time seems to suspend itself in the moments that follow as you wonder frantically what he’s going to do and then, with an alarming delay, what _you’re_ going to do. You’re staring up at Optimus, still on your knees, and you stiffen as those blue eyes flick downward to alight on you. A thought, unwanted, occurs to you as you exchange the most fleeting of glances.

_We’re in this together._

He grabs you, hoisting you with those enormous metal fingers. You’re not averse to an escape plan, but you’re not given much time to ponder what he’s thinking because the shriek of another pike rips through the night and then all you can think is _oh fuck_ as Optimus twists in a desperate effort to dodge. The missile strikes him in the shoulder and you hear him grunt in pain as he’s knocked sideways into the multi-story car park. The structure, old and damaged from a previous war, collapses under the weight. You look down from your position in Optimus’ fist and see nothing below but a gaping pit. The various floors of the car park were unable to withstand the ravages of time. Optimus has seen it too and you whip your head around to look up at him. There’s no good way out of this.

He looks down into the depths of the car park, then up at the sundry of men and weapons confronting him. Finally those glowing eyes fix on you.

“I am sorry,” he says, his voice peppered with static, and then he throws himself backward into the void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two for one deal, today only: [new Knock Out/Reader chapter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24854728/chapters/64625383).


	3. Initialization protocol

Going under the laser knife changes people. Cosmetic, augmentation, cyber-organic meshing—nobody comes out of those surgeries the same. That’s the intent. The changes you’d anticipated were all there when you woke up, but it took you a while to realize the scope of the others. Sleep became… different. You’d been warned of that, of course, because a neural implant is no small deal, but you weren’t entirely prepared. It’s like you’re never really not awake. You’re always aware you’re sleeping, which of course should be impossible. The neural implant keeps you hovering on the borderline of awareness even while you’re in repose, which is exactly as infuriating as it sounds. Some people don’t handle it well—to get a  _ legitimate _ neural implant one must undergo a rigorous psychiatric evaluation—and those that don’t tend to end up eating a bullet eventually. Others adapt, like you did. So when you close your eyes and go to sleep it’s not really sleep anymore but it works, because it still fulfills all the needs of your modded body and brain.

Since undergoing your…  _ transformation, _ you’ve had the opportunity to learn that you are still capable of reaching that depthless, dreamless place that you used to experience back in the day. All you need for it to happen is to be knocked out cold and (hah)  _ boom! _ —you rejoin the realm of unconsciousness typically reserved for the un-enhanced. It would be nice if it didn’t always require something calamitous happening beforehand… something like falling down a massive hole while held firmly in the fist of a full-size Cybertronian.

So that’s what you wake from now—old-fashioned unconsciousness, the kind even your neural implant can’t interfere with. To make up for that shortcoming, the implant immediately gets its revenge by assailing you with all manner of sensory input the moment you cross over into cognizance. Everything you hear is too loud, so it’s fortunate that it’s mostly just your breathing. Those parts of your body still made of skin and bone hurt, most notably your back and your ribs. There’s a smell, too: dank, the kind of smell you associate with places you don’t want to be. You’re sprawled out on your stomach and whatever is beneath you is cold and unyielding. You experimentally rotate your jaw, feel your cheek rub against metal.

Your ocular implant isn’t always “on.” Through complex programming and a bunch of other things you admittedly are not knowledgeable enough to understand, it reads your brain to detect periods of sleep or unconsciousness and deactivates. It won’t reactivate until it detects the movement in your other eye, so when that one blinks and opens, the implant switches on. The fall must have jarred it because it’s set on radiographic imaging, and while it’s too dark for you to see much out of the left eye, what you see from the right are many beautiful rivers of blue beneath you. You watch them for a while, these effulgent streams, giving your mind a bit of time to play catch up before you prop yourself up on your elbow. Your gaze drops to the hard surface you’re lying on and then you see  _ it  _ beneath, that incredible incandescent orb, the nexus to which all those blue streams flow to. It’s not glaringly bright at the moment. Instead it pulses gently in a way you find oddly mesmerizing.

It dawns on you now is not the time to admire the inner workings of an Autobot, so you prop yourself up onto your elbow and consider the situation. You’d fallen, held in Optimus’ hand. You’ve no memory of the impact, which is likely what knocked you out cold. Context clues have led to the knowledge that you are sprawled out on Optimus’ chest, which means he’d either intentionally cushioned your landing (at least as much as a creature of living metal could), or you’d been spectacularly lucky. You’re willing to bet on the former. Luck’s never really favored you. You swap back to regular vision. Scotopic enhancement lets you make out the shape that curves above you, though it takes you a bit to realize that what you’re staring at is a giant hand. So. The Autobot had protected you. Even despite what very little you know of him, this doesn’t surprise you at all. He seems the type.

An experimental shifting of your body reveals that you’ve likely accrued a bruise or two along your unprotected left side, and you wince as you ease into a sitting position. The hand shielding you doesn’t give you much room to move around, but you’re able to stretch out your right leg and flex it. The joint, unsurprisingly, is still sticking. Complacency strikes again. You’ve been far more lax in keeping up with your maintenance visits to Xerxes than you should have been, and this is the price you pay. Further punishment awaits in frequent visits to the man in order to rectify the problem, a thought which makes you heave a disconsolate sigh.

Beneath you, Optimus stirs. You tense, hoping he eases into wakefulness and doesn’t inadvertently squash you in the throes of uncertainty and confusion. The fingers above you twitch and then fall still. Greatly daring, you make a fist and rap softly on his chest.

“Hey,” you call out quietly, “I’m in here.”

There’s nothing for a moment, and then he starts to move. You start slipping down his frame as he sits up, but he flips his hand around and cups it so that you land unharmed in his palm. Now able to look around at your surroundings, you do so and find them just as grim as you’d assumed. The two of you had plummeted through several levels of basement and sewer to crash down in what can only be the undercity. It’s not as dark as you’d anticipated; light is filtering in from somewhere above, but it’s a bleak gray light, the kind that seems light it can waver and go out in an instant. Ominous. Around you both are souvenirs from the levels above: a lot of rubble, the crumpled skeleton of a car left behind decades ago in the car park, a stray hubcap, and huh — a body, broken and bent, bearing the insignia of Cyleis. Looks like you had company on the way down.

You crane your neck around to look up at Optimus, who has also just finished surveying the surroundings. This “cavern,” for lack of a better word, isn’t tall enough for him to stand upright, so he has remained sitting. You’re uncertain of the structural integrity of this space, though you are willing to bet it isn’t great, which of course leads to a pressing issue: how the fuck are the both of you going to get out of here?

“Are you injured?” he asks, and you find yourself directly on the receiving end of that luminous blue gaze. Acting on instinctual curiosity, you flip to radiographic vision and regret it immediately as an identical azure light assaults you with such radiance that you twist aside, slapping your hand over your implant and hissing out a curse.

He repeats his question, this time with more apparent concern. “I’m fine,” you bite out, angry at yourself for your own foolish inquisitiveness, angry at him because…. well, reasons. You get to your feet and take an experimental step to see if your problem leg will hold. It does. Heeding your irritated, unspoken request, the bot lowers his fingers to make a ramp to the ground. You traverse it carefully, your limp now very obvious. This further fans the flames of your anger, which you decide to turn onto him.

“If you had just gone when I told you to, we wouldn’t be in the middle of… “ You lift your left hand, flap it around to indicate the current situation.

He meets your vexation head on, his voice even. “While that may be true, I believe the end result would have been the same.”

You purse your lips, blow your breath out in a huff. “If you’d gone—”

“—either you or I still would have still been compromised. Their numbers were far greater, their advantages numerous.”

You glare at him until you can’t anymore, because he’s right. Even if he’d cleared the Boundary when he had had the time, your on-the-fly plan of trying to get to the parking garage basement would have been hindered first by your lameness, and then by the fact that the basement no longer exists. He’s being generous by saying either of you could have been overrun, because the truth is that it would have undoubtedly been you. You look away from him, shake your head, and swallow your frustration.

“I know,” you admit gracelessly. “If you hadn’t done what you’d done, I would have been screwed. Thank you for that. However—” you point upward, “they wanted you very badly. This won’t stop them. They’ll be working on a way to either dig their way down or find a different route through the sewers.”

“How quickly will they be able to mobilize the manpower required?”

You shake your head again. “Hours, maybe, depending on how lively things have become. All that noise will have attracted attention.” You’re silent for a while, thinking on what you could possibly do to extricate yourself from this and discarding each and every notion that occurs to you as useless. You doubt you could slip into the stream from this far down, not to mention the fetch teams will most certainly be monitoring stream activity in the area. Not that you really have anyone you could call for aid—an existence in hiding doesn’t exactly include a thriving social life. Your options are either Xerxes, who wouldn’t dare step into a mess like this, or the only other Cybertronian you know—who is unreliable, at best, and probably even more so given these circumstances.

When you return your attention to Optimus, you find him probing experimentally at the wall of heaped rubble next to him. Your brows come together in a frown as you relive the last few hours, and you decide to voice your issues aloud. “Why were you so adamant on talking to me?”

His head swivels back in your direction. “We require your aid.”

“As a guide?”

He says nothing, but merely inclines his head. Your frown deepens. “There are others that could guide you. There are people who do that sort of thing around the old city exclusively.”

Your skepticism is met with that infuriatingly collected mien. “You doubt my reasoning for asking you.”

“Yes.”

He leans forward bracing himself with one hand flat on the ground, lowering his head in order to better regard you. “You freed me from your trap and made the decision to let our group continue on when the opportunity to notify others of our presence would have benefited you greatly.”

“You’re making a snap judgment of my character based on that?”

He nods. “I am.”

Your expression contorts, veering into incredulous territory. “I set the trap that you triggered. You know why it was there?”

“You told Bumblebee it was to deter the presence of others.”

“I set those traps to catch those that come to find me. There’s a price on my head. A sizable one. Has been for years. I’m not as popular as I once was but every now and then someone heads into the kill zone looking to find me. I make sure I find them first.” You pause, tilting your head back with one brow arched as you wait for a question that doesn’t come. “No interest in why I’m hunted?”

“Your past is your own.”

He earns a point for that. You continue, “You seem to have developed an opinion of me based on what very little you know. I set you free because the trap wasn’t meant for you. I didn’t sell you out because I would have had to do so anonymously, which requires a lot of effort.”

That’s a half-truth. You have everything set up for anonymous dealings through the hardstream, but even the most thorough digital persona can be picked apart to reveal the person underneath. You don’t like taking that risk any more often than you have to. In addition to that, the thought of making bank off the Autobots hadn’t actually occurred to you at all, but you’re not going to mention that because you are not trying to endear yourself to him.

You conclude with, “You’re not the only undeserving ones that have stumbled into my trap. I let those ones go.”

There’s a beat of silence, then: “And the others?”

“I deal with them.”

“You said your traps were intended for renders and enhanced?”

“Yes, because that’s what they always send after me. Even like this,” you gesture to your gimp prosthetic, “I’m more than a match for a normal skinbag. Other enhanced are tougher, fabs even more so.”

“They?”

That word had slipped past you. Your mouth tightens and you make a dismissive noise. “I’m trying to tell you, Optimus, that I may not be the help you think you need. Getting me involved in your affairs could make things messy.”

He says nothing, merely studies you in a way you don’t like. He’s far too perceptive, this one, and you’re certain he’s intuited things you’d rather he not know. Defensively, you ask, “Are you always this trusting of someone you don’t know?” There’s no answer, so you follow up with, “Do you trust Xerxes?”

His expression swiftly changes, taking on a darker cast. “No.”

“Good. Don’t.”

“We have no choice but to deal with him.”

“Are you absolutely certain?”

His nod is grave. “There is no other.”

“Then my advice to you is to keep your business with him brief, because you aren’t human and there are  _ so many _ ways he could benefit from screwing you over. And I guarantee that he is already thinking about that, because that’s just who he is.”

“Knowing this, you still deal with him?”

“I have no choice,” is your echo of a response.

“There are no others that could attend to…?” he gestures to your right leg.

He’s turned this right around back onto you. You’d be angry except you kind of can’t be. “There are plenty who could. Most have better qualifications, too. But not many want to work with… someone like me, so all that was left was the undesirable option.”

“Someone like you?” He reads your refusal to answer that in the set of your jaw, and moves on to another question. “Xerxes has not yet betrayed you?”

Your little smile is an unpleasant one. “I know things about him that ensure his cooperation.” You don’t add that you’re pretty sure the information you are in possession of will only act as a deterrent for so long. Over the years, you’ve learned that Xerxes stays engaged only as long as a project interests him. Once he becomes bored, he becomes dangerous. You’ve no doubt he has contingencies in place should you decide to contact those who are very much interested in his whereabouts, just as you have contingencies in place should he decide to do the same to you. You hope, for the bots’ sake, that whatever they need him for remains interesting for its duration.

You realize you’ve revealed more about yourself in the past few minutes to this Autobot than you have in a very long time to anyone else, and it rattles you. You turn from him abruptly, tilting your head back to look up at the blocked passage. Nothing but concrete rubble and bent rebar and motes of dust floating in the dim light filtering through from gaps in the wreckage above. You swap through your vision modes but as you’d suspected, you are too far down to make out anything. You are well and truly trapped. And so is he.

“You seem calm, considering the situation,” you remark as you swing back around to face him.

“As do you.” Seeing your scowl, he goes on, “I am confident that a solution will soon present itself.”

That’s… cryptic, and you say as much.

“I was in contact with members of my team in the nanoseconds before we fell.” As your expression becomes curious, he elaborates, “Via internal communication link. Help is coming.”

“What about the House forces? They’ll still be up there and I’m willing to bet they won’t be the only ones.”

“I instructed my commander to utilize tactics I have recently observed,” he states, and there’s the faintest hint of what you think might be admimration in his voice. “He will create a diversion to draw them off.”

“The only thing that would—” you start, and then stop in sudden, grudging respect. “Your commander is going to use himself as bait?”

Optimus nods.

“I hope, for his sake, that he is either very fast or very good in a skirmish.”

“He is an exceptional soldier. I have no doubts that he will succeed.”

“And the others? How will they reach us down here?”

“Through the undercity,” is his response, and you realize that you have greatly underestimated Optimus and those with him. You had assumed, based on their unfamiliarity with the kill zone, that they had spent most of their time on the other, safer side of the Boundary. The undercity of Aquarius is vast, a labyrinth rife with hazards – mainly the insurgent Sovereign. It’s a place that even the Houses are reluctant to enter. If Optimus’ team is indeed able to navigate the undercity well enough to find you both here, it means they’ve spent a considerable amount of time within it.

As you regard him now there is a speculative element to your gaze. You voice your suspicions aloud. “You’re allied with a Sovereign cell?”

It is a span of several moments before he replies and when he does his voice is markedly more reserved. “You made it clear before that you do not wish to know our business. Has that changed?”

To your annoyance, you have to think about it. You remind yourself of all that’s happened tonight, of the fact that most of it only came about through your decision to aid them. “… No.”

Something ripples across his face, a flicker of what might be disappointment. It increases your ire for reasons you don’t understand — why should it matter to you what he thinks? Why  _ does _ it matter? You thought you’d had Optimus figured out within hours of knowing him—stoic and pragmatic with a noble streak that is probably often to his detriment. This conversation you’re having now has revealed that your judgment in that regard was premature. You feel suddenly and oddly on edge, so you opt to go on the offensive.

You ask, “Why is your spark so much brighter than than those of the others?”

His head jerks back in surprise, and a beat later his eyes narrow. He straightens, pulling away until his head nearly scrapes the top of the rubble confining you both.

“Why—” he starts, but then swiftly corrects himself. “How could you know that?”

You are both pleased and disconcerted to know you were able to throw him. You tap the side of your ocular implant. “Radiographic vision.”

“You are able to see past our external plating?”

“All of it,” you confirm. “Protoform, energon, all the moving parts… and the spark. And yours… yours is  _ blinding. _ Painful to look at. The sparks of other bots aren’t. Why is that?”

His countenance becomes even more closed off. The answer isn’t forthcoming, apparently, and inwardly you shrug. He’s entitled to his secrets, just as you are entitled to yours. Not much else to do but make a circuit of the area, which you do, switching through your vision modes as you walk in vain hope that you’ll discover a convenient way out. No luck there, of course, and you come to a halt next to the body of the Cyleis soldier that had fallen with you both. He lies face down, blood and thicker bits of gore decorating the stone in a spray around him. You’re not interested in him as a person. You’re interested in what he had been carrying: an automatic rifle, military issue, lying next to his grotesquely twisted and outstretched left arm. You’d much prefer your Arbitrator, but it’s unhelpfully lying somewhere above. You stoop, grab the rifle, heft it and frown at the unfamiliar weight and feel. Better than nothing, at least, particularly if the Autobots aren’t the first to find you.

“How close is your team?” you ask as you crouch and begin to search the corpse for anything else that might prove useful.

“I am uncertain. The rubble and depth is interfering with my internal communications system.”

“Same,” you tell him. Not that you’ve got anyone to call for extraction.

“I estimate they will arrive within two cycles, possibly less.”

Two hours. You doubt those topside could find a way down here that quickly, unless they too opt to use the undercity. Doing so would be at great risk to them, however, considering the heavy Sovereign presence. So… Autobots to the rescue, which in theory should work out well for you, except…

“After we’re out of here, what then?” You toss the question over your shoulder, sliding your hand out of one of the corpse’s empty pockets.

“We will return to the surface.”

“What I’m asking,” you say as you turn your head to look at him, “is whether I’m free to go once we get there.” The plates that function as his eyebrow equivalents shoot upward in surprise. “You said you needed my help,” you remind him.

“And we do, but we will not force your cooperation.”

You study him intently until you feel a twinge in your neck for holding the position for too long. You lift your right hand, rub at your nape with your prosthetic fingers as you get to your feet and turn to face him. “What exactly is it you need? Something more than a guide?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. Maybe he’s changed his mind given what he knows about you now. It won’t break your heart if he has.

“We require someone with knowledge of the Houses,” is his eventual and (probably intentionally) vague answer.

“There are a lot of people that fit that bill,” you inform him.

“Yes,” he says, “but our needs require a comprehensive familiarity with the old city, as well as someone who is capable of defending themselves.”

Despite yourself, your curiosity is piqued. “Sounds more than a little dangerous.”

“It is.”

“You asked me for help before you knew I had been part of a House, though.”

“I made an assumption, based on your… expertise, an assumption that was later proven correct.”

And your assumption has just been proved, as well: he  _ is _ perceptive. Alarmingly so. “Remember how I said I don’t want to know more about your business? Not sure I could do what you need me to do and not learn more than I want to.”

“We need you to help us move undetected not only through the old city, but through House territory as well.”

“How far into House territory?”

His somber expression is all the answer you need. You’re tempted to laugh out loud, equally as tempted to let out a low whistle of disbelief. “That’s… you realize that’s a  _ big _ ask?”

“I do.”

“Again, not sure I could do this without becoming tangled up in something I’m sure I don’t want to be tangled up in.”

“All we require is guidance. Everything else we will do on our own.”

“Which Houses?”

“We are not yet certain.”

“That’s why you are dealing with Xerxes?”

“In part.”

There are so, so,  _ so _ many reasons for you to say no to this. Living in the old city already puts you closer than you’d like to House territory but it was the only option you had, and you were able to adjust. Anything to do with the Houses is bad news, indisputably. That’s not to say that you haven’t dabbled in fucking with them, because you have – most of the requests Xerxes makes of you involves hijacking supply trucks destined for Houses. However, those are operations you plan carefully and execute with utmost caution, sometimes partnering with the only other Cybertronian you know. You’ve made a concentrated effort to avoid venturing too near to House territory for good reason, so to actually and deliberately encroach…

An emphatic and stentorian  _ NO  _ should be your answer to all this… but it’s not. Instead, to your complete bewilderment, you are actually considering it. You typically don’t work for free, because living in exile still has its costs, and as a free agent you are able to take payment without having to give up a chunk of it as fees to a House. You do work for some people other than Xerxes from time to time, some of it dangerous, some of it not. For something like this, you  _ should  _ charge a fortune. 

Optimus, it seems, is not done wielding his focused beam of insight. “We can offer you payment.”

“Not necessary,” is your immediate response, and you frown. Your mouth is operating on a conflicting schedule to your brain, apparently. He blinks, apparently also taken aback by your answer. You don’t like…  _ this _ , whatever  _ this  _ is that’s making you speak before you think, that has you actually considering doing what he asks. There is  _ something  _ about him that troubles you, something inexplicable – something, you suddenly suspect, tied to the unusual, cosmic flaring of his spark. 

“Tatterdemalion,” he says, and you realize that you’ve been lost in doubt and suspicions and internal queries while staring at him. You give your head a quick shake. Hearing your name spoken aloud by him further unsettles you. There are not many who know you by that name, even fewer you know well enough to give it to. 

“I need to think about it,” you say in a tone of voice just shy of being curt. It suddenly hits you, the weight of everything that’s transpired tonight. Your current existence is owed only to your wariness, your unwillingness to fully trust anyone other than yourself, your ability to wholly embrace the isolation that was forced upon you. In the hours past all the rules you have so carefully delineated in order to stay alive have blurred, and it all started with  _ his _ initial request that you guide them to Xerxes. 

Optimus is dangerous – you’ve seen proof of that firsthand. What you stupidly failed to realize is that he is dangerous to  _ you.  _

Your back is to him, but you can feel his gaze as you walk to the heap of rubble that consists of the cavern wall. You turn, press your back to a boulder, and sink into a sitting position, laying your rifle across your lap. 

He speaks to you from across the way, pushing in his gentle yet firm way. “Our task is urgent.”

You meet his eyes and repeat clearly, “I need to think about it.”

“If there is any–”

“Every time I step outside of my home, I put myself in danger. I live my life in hiding just so I can keep  _ living _ . Already tonight I have taken more risks than I have in years and look where it’s gotten me.”

“I regret–”

“I’m sure you do,” you cut him off evenly, deriving a small sense of pleasure in watching his mouth flatten into a thin line. “And so do I. You’re asking me to march myself right into the places I fled from. I can’t make this decision quickly. I need time.”

He is silent, contemplating, and then he nods once. “Very well.”

You say nothing further, instead cozying up to the rigid rock behind you, tipping your head back, and closing your eye. Two hours, more or less, until rescue –  _ if _ the Autobots get here first. If they don’t, well, you’ll be fighting again, and you need what little rest you may be able to get just in case that happens. You won’t be able to sleep, though. You’ll be way too busy trying – and failing – to talk yourself out of doing as Optimus has requested.

**.x.**

The cavalry arrives early. 

You’re roused from your not-really doze by the sound of Optimus’ voice speaking to someone that isn’t you. You straighten, rolling your shoulders to relieve the ache that comes from leaning against something uncomfortable for a long time. 

Optimus concludes his brief conversation with, “Understood.” He then looks at you, extending one hand and beckoning. “Extraction is about to begin.”

You get to your feet, rifle held in both hands, and cross the space between you. He lays his hand down flat on the ground, and you quirk a brow in his direction. 

“Explosives,” is his explanation. 

You step onto his palm carefully, drop to your knees as he lifts the other hand and cups it over you. Entombed within his hold, you remain still and listen as he gives a single directive to whomever is on the other side of the rock fall. “Now.”

It’s instantaneous. You can’t feel it but you can hear it, can feel it, and you place your hand flat against one of his curved fingers in order to steady yourself against the quaking. It’s over quickly, though the detonation was enough in these close quarters to make your ears ring. When he withdraws his hand you look around to find the air thick with dust. You hold your sleeve against your mouth and nose and move your gaze to the huge dark aperture in the rock wall to your left, a hole through which Suture and another unfamiliar Autobot peer through. 

“Hurry,” instructs the new one. “The structural integrity of this space was likely weakened by the blast.”

You hop off Optimus’ hand. Your right knee gives a little on the landing but you power through, walking quickly toward the opening, still holding your arm over your mouth in a poor attempt to keep from inhaling dust and other debris from the explosion. There’s a four foot ledge for you to climb over to get to the other side, but before you can start climbing Suture reaches through and, after glancing at your face for approval, grabs you. He pulls you through easily, drawing back from the hole in order to give Optimus room to crawl through. 

You take a quick look around. The undercity consists of the ruins of ancient streets and buildings, forgotten and neglected and buried. Some parts are stable, others very much not. This section is clearly the latter, as the paving below is pitted and marred with gaps and what structures you can glimpse in the surrounding gloom are crumbled husks. It’s essentially a massive, sprawling cavern, and tipping your head back you see that the ceiling is lost to darkness. The Autobots have enough room to stand straight, which Optimus does once he’s over the threshold. 

“Commander,” he says to the unknown Autobot, “What is the status of the diversion team?”

“Both Bumblebee and Wheeljack are unharmed and are proceeding to the rendezvous point.”

“How are you able to communicate this far down?” you interject, unable to contain your curiosity.

The new Autobot flicks you a glance that would be generous to describe as dismissive. It’s Suture who responds. “Temporary signal boosters. We managed to reconfigure them for use with our internal systems.”

Impressive ingenuity. You cock your head, return your attention to the commander. While considerably taller than Suture, his head only reaches Optimus’ shoulder. It’s hard to discern his coloring down here, but you make out blue and what you think might be pale red. “Optimus said  _ you  _ were going to be the distraction.”

The commander’s brow plating draws into a frown so severe that you actually lean back a little. “I was,” he informs you coolly. “Wheeljack and Bumblebee volunteered. As they are capable of greater speed in their vehicle modes, they were the more sensible choice.”

“Tatterdemalion,” Optimus says, gesturing with one arm, “This is Ultra Magnus. Ultra Magnus, this is Tatterdemalion, our guide.”

You notice he doesn’t differentiate between  _ former _ and  _ present _ guide. You give Ultra Magnus a perfunctory head bob, which he does not bother to return in kind. Instead, his eyes narrow further as he gives you a once-over, a clear indication that he is less than impressed. Prickly son-of-a-bitch. 

Suture, still holding you, raises you up and turns you so that he can examine you. “You’re a surprising one,” he remarks. “You held up well.”

It doesn’t really sound like a compliment, more like grudging acknowledgment. You decide to ignore it, feeling suddenly wearied by the events of the night, wanting nothing more than to be back within the safe, defended confines of your home. You twist your head around to look at Optimus. 

“We must return her to the surface,” he says, pre-empting what you were about to say. Interesting  _ –  _ he’d said they must return  _ you _ to the surface, but not themselves. Do they dwell down here? 

“I can find my way,” you tell him. “Get me to the nearest waypoint and I’ll be fine.”

Waypoints are scattered throughout the undercity, locations marked with digital markers that direct you to all adjoining markers. It’s an effective if somewhat haphazard way of navigating the gargantuan expanse, one that you’ve used on the rare occasion you’ve had the misfortune of finding yourself down here. 

“We will return you to the surface,” Optimus repeats in tone that brooks no argument. You bridle a little, but say nothing. Truth be told, you’d really rather not spend the next three hours poking around in this dark, unsafe place. While the Sovereign don’t have any reason to be hostile toward you, that doesn’t mean they won’t be.

Optimus holds out his hand so that Suture may transfer you over. He drops you carefully into Optimus’ palm and casts one last look through the hole they’d blown in the rock fall. “The sooner we depart, the better. We were not the only ones looking for you.”

“Yes,” Optimus agrees. His blue eyes flick between his subordinates and you before he issues an order. “Ultra Magnus, lead the way.”

**.x.**

They travel on legs instead of wheels, the footing here being too treacherous for driving. Nobody speaks, and seated in Optimus’ hand you pay careful attention to the way Ultra Magnus navigates. He chooses his route without hesitation, has no need of consulting the waypoints. He is as familiar with the undercity – or at least this part of it – as you are with the kill zone. You are willing to bet they  _ do  _ dwell down here, which is smart, though questionable. While UnAuthentic and the Houses have considerable reach within both parts of Aquarius, that reach is severely limited below ground. This is the safest place for anyone looking to avoid catching the attention of either of them – provided they are on good standing with the Sovereign. You are nearly certain now that Optimus and his group are allied with one of the Sovereign cells, which adds another perilous albeit fascinating facet to the conundrum they present.

Once in the sewers, the route set by the Autobot commander is a switchback series of ascending corridors that deliver you topside by way of a huge drain tunnel. It’s clear this is a path frequented by others, as you glimpse garbage and shell casings and the occasional scrawled graffito on the curved walls. The closer you get to the surface the warmer the air becomes, and as Optimus jumps down from the drain’s mouth onto the concrete ditch below, you suck in a deep breath and feel muscles you hadn’t known were tense relax. 

It’s past dawn, an hour or two by your estimate. You can tell you’re in the old city by the lack of noise – no cars, no horns, no susurrus of the daily workings of a metropolitan area. There’s only the silence of a place long dead, a silence you find incredibly welcoming. You’re home.

“Where is your residence?” Optimus queries as Suture and Ultra Magnus hop down from the tunnel behind him. 

You shake your head. “I can get there from here.” He opens his mouth to disagree and you cut him off with another sharp shake of your head. “There’s no point in arguing. Put me down, please, and we can part ways here.”

His expression is severe, and you feel a twinge of…  _ something  _ that you’re not going to trouble yourself with interpreting right now. He does as you ask, depositing you carefully on the ground. You lift your arm, swipe through screens on your wrist interface until you bring up your map of the old city. Currently you’re standing a dozen blocks beyond your “neighborhood,” but that’s a small matter. 

“You’re willing to walk when we can drive?” Suture asks, and the look you give him earns you an unimpressed shake of the head. “Stubborn.”

“I make it a point not to invite anybody home,” is your retort, “particularly those I’ve known for less than a day.”

“Given your love of traps, I suppose it is far safer for us this way.” You’re surprised to see him wear a slight, teasing smile as he says this. 

“Much safer,” you confirm. You switch your attention to Optimus, who is waiting with barely restrained impatience for what you will say next. “Give me a day to think on what you’re asking,” you tell him. 

“Our task is urgent,” Ultra Magnus objects. “We do not have time–”

He falls silent as Optimus abruptly raises a hand. “One day,” he agrees. “How will we contact you?”

You consider telling him how to find you in the stream but discard the notion immediately. You’re not quite there on the trust scale yet. Instead you say, “I’ll be here at sundown, regardless of my answer.”

Your statement is met with a trio of disapproving looks, which you staunchly refuse to bend under. “If you choose not to assist us,” Optimus says after a span of seconds, “will you give us the recommendation for another who can?”

“If I think of one, yes. Xerxes may be your best bet there, though.”

He says nothing but the set of his jaw speaks volumes. He takes a step back. “You should go,” you say, flicking your fingers in the direction of the tunnel. “You’ve seen what happens when bots linger here. Guaranteed they’re still looking for you.”

“They’ll be looking for you too,” Suture points out.

“Yes, but I’m less valuable,” you lie easily. “And I also have my love of traps.”

That earns you another flicker of a smile. A glance at Ultra Magnus’ face reveals only stern censure. Oh well. Can’t woo them all. 

Optimus is still watching you and there’s a weight to his stare that presses down on you, silent insistence and adjuration combined. Under its intensity you nearly blurt out an answer you’re not at all ready to give. You take a deep breath and rally yourself against this unwanted and incomprehensible effect he has on you. “I give you my word,” you assure him. “One day. I’ll be here.”

“Thank you,” he says after a moment, inclining his head. He then makes a gesture to the other two. The three of them reverse their path, stepping back up into the tunnel, presumably to make the descent back to the undercity. 

You don’t hang around to watch them go, instead heading toward the nearest ladder that will take you out of the drainage ditch. You pull yourself up as quickly as you can and make a beeline for the nearest alley. You walk until you find an open door and slip inside it, flattening yourself against the interior wall of whatever this old building used to be. You need to get home, yes, but more pressingly you also need answers and insight. You attach your comm-unit to the port behind your ear, ensure stealth mode is engaged, and sift through the glowing channels until you find the one you want. You ping it three times before you get a response.

“Tatter,” is the blunt greeting. 

“Blackout,” you say. “I need your opinion on something, and I need it now.”


End file.
